The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) on Monday declared "war" against the Automobile Manufacturers Employers Organisation after wage negotiations over the weekend hit a snag once again. "We are bracing for massive strike action in the car industry," a Numsa spokesperson said.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed on Monday for a green revolution in Africa, telling a conference in Addis Ababa that ending the continent’s chronic hunger crisis was possible given the right strategies and political will. Nearly a third of all men, women and children in sub-Saharan Africa are severely malnourished.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s appeal against her fraud and theft conviction was partly upheld in the Pretoria High Court on Monday, and her four-year sentence replaced with a wholly suspended one. Judge Eberhardt Bertelsmann dismissed 25 theft charges against the former African National Congress Women’s League president, but upheld 43 of fraud.
Here’s an interesting scenario. Imagine that someone arrived at your farm one day and suddenly declared it to be someone else’s farm. "Colonialism," you’d say. Let it ride. This kind of thing is happening all the time. What can you do about it, anyway? What can anyone ever do about colonial conquest? Shit happens.
The Scorpions have refuted a Sunday newspaper report claiming the elite investigating unit was probing three government ministers and a provincial premier for fraud. The report said the Scorpions were probing the four for fraud and corruption relating to travel vouchers.
Solidarity and the National Union of Mineworkers on Friday handed over a memorandum to Anglo Platinum management at its base metals refinery in Rustenburg. AngloPlat ignored an agreement that was signed with the unions earlier this year and decided to implement a bonus of 18% instead of the agreed upon 30%, Solidarity said.
Hundreds of thousands of Rwandans accused of participating in the 1994 genocide are due to face justice for the first time under a controversial system of village courts which start hearing cases this month. Virtually the entire population will be involved in the trials, which dispense with lawyers and rely on the community to act as witness, advocate and judge of one of the 20th century’s greatest crimes.
One of the final taboos in Germany is the portrayal of Adolf Hitler in a central role on screen. He has been depicted sometimes as white space, but more usually he has little more than a cameo part, often shot from behind. But now, nearly 60 years after his death, two lavish German film productions set in the Third Reich are breaking that taboo.
In the four months since the former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced to flee Haiti, only one foreign force has shown the potential to reunite the country — the Brazilian football team. There is no exaggerating the appeal of Brazilian football here.
The Sontanga Quartet joins hands with Alex van Heerden and Derek Gripper to try to explore the traditional Afrikaans music of the Western Cape, while using contemporary classical and jazz idioms.